Windows Intune

Centralized way to manage critical PC housekeeping tasks. Eliminates need for some third-party tools. Can manage PCs on or off company network. Robust Remote Assistance support, inventory tracking and reporting

Cons

No integration with Active Directory. Quirky workflow with PC update process. Policy management not as granular as Group Policy. Maybe expensive for some organizations.

The Administrator Console
Access to the Administrator console requires a Windows Live ID account to access Microsoft's Online Services Customer Portal. From the portal, users can try or buy Intune. Most Administrators, after logging into the console, will only have one account with one Intune environment to manage. If a user's Windows Live ID has been granted Service or Tenant administrator rights, that user will see the Multi-Account console after log on. It's a way for Service Providers or large IT support organizations to manage multiple customers.

The Administrator console opens up a navigation panel which has links to Workspaces  the groups of features in Intune. Workspaces includes Tasks, Alerts, System and Reports as well as other management capabilities. The navigational panel reveals a System Overview that details the state of managed computers. I already had a few managed computers in my demo environment. System Overview displayed that my managed PCs had no endpoint protections issues and that I had 78 new updates to apply. Now of course, you won't see any PCs to begin with since you have to add them. Be aware, too, that it can take up to a half hour after you install client agents until information for those clients begins to appear in the Admin console interface.

There is a lot of management available in Intune. Administrators can push out updates and Service Packs to clients per a defined schedule or all at once. They can also set policies, deploy endpoint and firewall settings, view alerts, create and export reports and even check the installed software listing and licensing information of managed PCs.

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Samara Lynn has nearly twenty years experience in Information Technology; most recently as IT Director at a major New York City healthcare facility. She has a Bachelor's degree from Brooklyn College, several technology certifications, and she was a tech editor for the CRN Test Center.
With an extensive, hands-on background in deploying and managing Microsoft Windows infrastructures and networking, she was included in Black Enterprise's "20 Black Women in Tech You Need to Follow on Twitter," and received the 2013 Small Business Influencer Top 100 Champions...
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